Tsui Hark’s cinema is perhaps too much to ever be completely and fully embraced by American audiences. The films (an exact history of which it can seem impossible to keep track) are delirious, exhausting, brilliant, petulant, undergirded by moral clarity, and rarely make 100% clear what’s going on. And good luck finding more than a handful in decent condition under strictly legal terms. But the ones that hit do hit very hard, and Metrograph’s forthcoming retrospective, Don’t Play with Fire, does well to index his greatest work. (Or, in the case of Knock Off, Rob Schneider’s.) Ahead of a September 4 start, we’re pleased to debut the trailer.
With it comes, too, an exclusive clip from his breakthrough feature Don’t Play with Fire (commonly referred to as Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind), a restoration of which plays in Metrograph’s series and has been acquired by Cult Pics for a U.S. theatrical release. It’s one of the most furious calling-card films ever made (including a frankly unforgivable act of animal cruelty) that has only been available in copies that look like they were traded on a black market; they very well may have been. The forthcoming release is a major restitution for Tsui’s place in Hong Kong cinema.
The theatrical release of Don’t Play With Fire follows Cult Epics’ 2-disc Limited Edition Blu-ray from this past June, which features three versions of the film — including the banned original Chinese cut — alongside new interviews with actors Paul Che and Albert Au, screenwriter Szeto Cheuk-on, and assistant director O Sing-pui. Following Don’t Play with Fire’s opening at Metrograph on September 11 and in Los Angele at the American Cinematheque’s Los Feliz 3 on September 14, it will continue touring to Toronto, Seattle, and more cities to come.
Watch both below:
The post A New Tsui Hark Series and Theatrical Run Puts a Hong Kong Legend In Focus first appeared on The Film Stage.
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